


Over the Wine-Dark Sea

by littlequasimonsters



Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen, Greek Mythology - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-31
Updated: 2016-03-31
Packaged: 2018-05-30 06:19:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6412423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlequasimonsters/pseuds/littlequasimonsters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Makino’s soul is countless centuries old, and her blood flows golden ichor. She knows godly eyes when she sees them.</p><p>(One Piece meets Greek Mythology)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Over the Wine-Dark Sea

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a long while ago. It was supposed to be part of a series with all of the Straw Hats, but I never managed to finish all of them, so I thought I'd post Luffy's at least because I'm rather proud of it.

Aphrodite had accepted the beginning of the Pirate Age as well as any other. Sometimes even the Pantheon cannot control what happens. Humans can be the most unpredictable things and coupled with the prophesized end of the old world, there wasn’t much they could do except roll with the punches.

So the dawn of this new chapter came rising over the ocean horizon along with the quest for knowledge and adventure. It did not stay that way for long. Devil Fruits happened and so did pirates.

Devil Fruits were the fallen scraps of holy fruit from Mount Olympus that took on a life of their own. Soon things like greed and gluttony ravaged the earth, and Aphrodite felt love on the Grand Line dying and fading.

Her family seemed fine with the changes. Each of their domains found a way to flourish while she felt choked by the heavy scent of bloodlust and brine. There was no beauty to be found in the Age of Pirates, but she stayed anyway.

She stayed because Mount Olympus is her home, and where else did she have to go?

The day Gol D. Roger came sailing through the Grand Line with his merry band of misfits, she felt her heart soar with hope because this is a man who values love and family. He could change the world.

Of course, the government killed him before that could happen. The rest of the gods were so caught up in themselves and fitting their niches into this New Age that they neglected what was important. Their negligence killed what good was left on the sea. The Pirate King never lived long enough to bring unity like Aphrodite hoped. Instead, his death created room for more chaos.

The day the world allowed the corrupted marines to slice Gol D. Roger's throat was the day that Aphrodite left Olympus.

She traveled the human way from ship to ship, island to island, until she no longer felt a pain tugging in her heart. Her destination turned out to be a quaint little island town in the East Blue where the people there had no care for the mystery and treasure that may lie in the distant blue horizon.

The first person she met when she walked into town was the man whom she would come to inherit the bar from. He’d eyed her warily, staring at the way she walked barefoot out of the shallow waters, basking in a sunlight that wasn’t so stiflingly Apollo’s. At his startled expression, she laughed. It had been so long since she had been able to breathe without feeling like she was drowning.

“Excuse me, Miss, do you need some help?” the man asked, reaching an arm towards her, but he hesitated to actually pull her out of the water. As if he wasn't sure she was real.

“I’d appreciate if you can tell me where the nearest inn is,” Aphrodite smiled, brushing strands of olive hair out of her face. “My name’s Makino.”

A new beginning.

The day Luffy entered Makino’s life, the waves were crashing almost eagerly against the cliff side like they were jumping out of the sea to reach something high above. She didn’t think much of it at the time.

Later on that afternoon, Dragon marched into her pub in a panic (or as close to a panic as she will ever see the revolutionary leader in). Half covered by his cloak and swaddled in patchwork blankets was a boy with hair as black as oil and eyes as eager as the jumping waves. The first thing the outlaw did was glare around the room, sending the patrons scattering, and then proceeded to very unceremoniously dump the baby into her arms.

“Dragon, who does this boy belong to?” Makino asked. Her eyes didn’t leave the baby tugging at her hair with chubby fingers. He looked healthy at least.

“Someone left him on the deck of my ship with a small letter. No one on my crew saw him but there was no way I could keep him on a revolutionary vessel,” his face was obscured by the shadow of his hood, but she could tell from the tension in his jaw that this situation had thrown him off.

“Okay, okay, that’s fine. I’ll get him sorted into the orphanage bright and early tomorrow morning,” Makino nodded nervously with something frantic rushing up her throat as well.

“Don’t do that,” Dragon snapped before taking a calming breath to continue, “please. I’m sorry, Makino, but there are extenuating circumstances that prevent us from taking a more logical route. I’d like to raise him as my own. Well, not raise him exactly because of my position, but I wish to claim him as my son, Monkey D. Luffy.”

“Luffy,” Makino whispered to the boy in her arms, smiling slightly as he gurgled happily at the sound of his name. “That’s a lovely thing for you to do, but I don’t see why you brought him here.”

“I know this is a lot to ask, but could you care for him in my stead?” Dragon asked, bowing deeply and awaiting Makino’s decision.

“Me? I couldn’t possibly...” she started only to trail off when she looked back down at the eyes of the boy. They were oceans on stormy days when the waters were being called to the heavens. They sang of greatness and divinity.

Makino’s soul is countless centuries old, and her blood flows golden ichor. She knows godly eyes when she sees them. She gasped, “Dragon, is this what I think it is?”

“The letter explained that you are well versed in this area which is why I came to you. It will only be until Garp and I can sort out other living arrangements,” Dragon’s words were directed at Makino, but his eyes lingered on Luffy, and there was a hint of something gentle and vulnerable in his gaze. Dragon had become deeply invested in this boy, and Makino felt a responsibility to that.

She had seen countless men and women of the sea come through her pub, and all of them seemed convinced that power meant being hard-hearted, meant losing the softest parts of them. Dragon is exactly like that, and she’d be glad to help along any gentle thing left inside of him. She’d be glad, in as short amount of time as she may be allowed this boy, to teach him how to grow strong and still grow human.

“Yeah, alright, I can do that. It shouldn’t be too difficult to clear up some room for him upstairs,” Makino rocked Luffy back and forth slowly, and in the dimming light of her pub, both of them felt the beginning of something revolutionary.

The next day, Dragon vanished once more, and Makino went shopping for baby supplies. No one seemed to question the extra little presence in town, and since nobody asked, Makino didn’t tell. She didn’t know how many people knew about Luffy’s origin, so she just didn’t talk about it.

Dragon wrote to her in sporadic monthly updates, summing up to how they still hadn’t decided where to keep Luffy. Garp wanted him to grow up a Marine, and Dragon wanted him to grow up free.

Eventually, after nearly half a year had passed, she wrote back asking for permission to keep Luffy with her. She had grown accustomed to Luffy’s small vibrant presence, and sometimes a cheerful grin from him as he presented her with his newest findings from around town in grubby, toddler hands was the highlight of her days. Dragon agreed immediately, and the letters more or less stopped.

They were happy.

Then the Red Hair Pirates dropped anchor.

Makino didn’t think much of it at first. Plenty of interesting characters made it through their docks, and Luffy was at that age when hero worship was normal. Perhaps she should’ve been a little more concerned that his hero was a pirate, but in her thousands of years of experience, there were worse things to put on a pedestal.

(She is a notoriously good judge of character. She can see everything that is in someone’s heart, and she had honestly believed that Shanks had a good heart, but in the end, it still became an issue).

“Do you know what you’ve done?” Makino demanded. She hadn’t felt fury like this since her days on Olympus, and that felt like a life time ago.

“Yeah, I know,” Shanks said, running a hand through his hair. “Luffy is way too young to have a Devil Fruit. It won’t be easy, but it’s still an advantage. If he wants to go out to sea, he’s going to need any advantage he can get.”

“He can’t swim anymore,” Makino hissed. The waves will never jump eagerly for him again. He will forget what it feels like to be rightfully welcomed by the ocean.

Shanks blinked back at her, stunned, and she realized. He had no clue the true weight of what had happened, and she wanted to shake him until he understood, but she couldn’t. A sea god’s son whose greatest enemy was the sea. Shanks had no idea the tragedy he’d caused.

“Get out of my bar.”

“Makino, please,” Shanks tried, arms stretched out beseechingly.

“No.” She clenched her eyes shut against the sight of him, unable to believe that she once trusted the man. “Get out.”

A week later Shanks saved Luffy from the Sea King and a part of Makino found the ability to forgive. The rest of her shook with knowledge. This was the ocean trying to take back what had been stolen. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. That is how the gods work.

Not long after that Garp took Luffy away, but Makino always watched out for him. She was as close as Luffy had to a mother, and she had decided that he would be her contribution to this New Age. She filled his heart with as much love as she could and hoped that the world would never chip away at it until he was left as hollowed and bitter as the rest of them.

As she stood on that dock with the rest of their town, bidding Luffy goodbye, she prayed for the first time since becoming Makino. She prayed to her mother and father, her brothers and sisters, to keep her son safe. In all the ways that matter Luffy is her son, not Poseidon’s. She prayed for their protection as he left her domain forever, and she wanted more than anything to tell Luffy about who he was, what he was.

But in the end, Makino was not brave enough, not like her sisters were. She’s not Artemis, who wields her bow and arrow like an extension of herself. She’s not Athena who wears battle armor like a second skin. They were always the bold ones. It’s why they stayed and she left.

Instead Makino wrote him a letter, telling every truth she could still remember and every lie she wanted to forget. She pressed it into his hands with a wretched desperation. His hands were so much bigger than when they brought her bugs and twigs and seashells in muddied palms. She remembered bandaging scrapes and cuts on those hands. She remembered holding them in her own after bad dreams. She bit back her tears and made him promise not to open it until after he left.

Makino has become cut off from the Fates by living so far from the Grand Line, so she has no way of knowing for sure. Yet she maintains faith that Luffy will return one day with a crown upon his head. Her soul is countless centuries old, and her blood flows golden ichor. She knows destiny when she sees it.


End file.
